No Harm Done
by Natsumi
Summary: They tell her that there was no harm done. After all, it was all Tom's fault. [CoS in reverse]


Disclaimer: Characters and situations owned by JK Rowling, the publishers, Warner Bros etc. There is no copyright infringement intended, and no profit at ALL is being made from this. 

Author's Note: The italicized parts were taken from the book, and others are... descriptions. Or summat. Thanks to Bittery Bathory for the beta. 

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No Harm Done   
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_There has been no lasting harm done, Ginny._

They thought they understood her fear, the way she sometimes stopped smiling in the middle of a conversation, her eyes going opaque. 

They thought it would be fine, just a few months of care and loving attention, back in the noisy, happy Burrow, she'd be all better. Soon she'd forget how a handsome boy stepped toward her and smiled and covered her eyes with his hands and told her to sleep. She'd forget the feel of paint, red as blood, dripping through her fingers, of thin, fragile necks between her hands. After all, she never knew. 

Didn't she? 

_Never trust anything that thinks for itself, if you can't see where it keeps its brain._

They thought she'd learned, thought she knew better now. 

Then again, they thought she knew better before. 

_ But Ginny's not... Ginny hasn't been..._

But that was the problem, you see. They always thought that Ginny couldn't. Wouldn't. 

Even her. 

_ ...has she?_

But she does know better now. Tom taught her better than her parents did. More than she ever wanted to know. More than they ever wanted her to know. What they wanted to protect her from. What they wanted to protect. Her innocence. 

In a way, she knows more than they do. 

They think that innocence comes with wide eyes and a happy smile. Being able to act clumsy with a schoolgirl crush, still fumbling in Potions, and being kind to everyone. 

Oh, she really does know better. 

You don't know innocence until you've lost it. And you don't lose it until you've looked into yourself, and saw what darkness you were capable of. 

Red paint, dead feathers, and empty shells of people were proof of what darkness she was capable of. 

_ How could they prove that it had been he who'd made her do it all?_

But it wasn't her fault. It was Tom's, they repeated, a chant, a mantra. He'd taken over her, forced her to do it, his empty vessel. She was innocent of wrongdoing. 

Their words only upset her more. She was guilty, only they wouldn't give her penance, wouldn't let her grieve for innocence lost. 

She'd been weak, _ -I tried to tell you at b-breakfast but I c-couldn't say it in front of Percy-_ she knew it, Tom had said it, now everyone heard of it, of the sad, sorry little tale of Ginny Weasley, _ -but I swear I didn't mean to-_ so stupid and naïve to trust the future Dark Lord. So desperate for a friend, so lonely, so pathetic. She'd made a mockery of the values Gryffindor stood for. 

She'd been weak, -_Riddle made me-_ and six beings had suffered for it. 

But there was no harm done, they assured her. It was _ -it was me-_ Tom's fault. 

But could she still blame Tom for the dreams? The nightmares of riding a basilisk through an empty castle full of statues, only to wake up in a dress made of feathers, and the lingering scent of blood, blood she couldn't see. A nightmare within a nightmare. 

She couldn't let go. 

She knew she should. Harry came and banished her monster, a monster she'd freed and fed with her fears and dreams. 

But she couldn't forget, mustn't ever forget. That was her only penance. Her only way of ensuring that she wouldn't make that mistake ever again. 

So she held on to the memories that had lain dormant, like she had been while she slept as Tom Riddle walked around in her body. It had been her eyes that had seen, her hands that had tightened around feathers, and had dripped paint over her robes. And it had been her lips that parted over a hissing voice that had controlled a giant serpent. 

She held on to the looks on each of their faces. 

On Hermione Granger's and Penelope Clearwater's _ -her face had been reflected on the mirror Hermione'd been holding-_ when Tom checked to see why they hadn't been killed. 

On Justin Finch-Fletchley's and Nearly Headless Nick's when Tom tested the Petrified ghost's form _-it did and her fingertips had been covered in soot-_ pushing at his head to see if it would swing off his neck even as a statue. 

On Colin Creevey's when Tom stole a grape _ -she'd woken up later, with a strange aftertaste of something she couldn't identify, sticky and sweet-_ off the bunch the boy had been carrying. 

On Mrs. Filch as Tom painted _ -the brush had slipped and covered her robes in red-_ the wall with his warning. 

The look on their faces had been the same, shock and horror as one grotesque death mask. 

And she held on to that feeling of sick, dark triumph after long frustration that had made her wonder if it had been Tom's or hers. 

She held on because it was better knowing. Better than the fear, the guilt, the doubt, the touches of madness. 

It was better than those empty holes _ -I think I'm losing my memory-_ in her memory, the blank spots after certain nights, that she reached for yet recoiled from, fearing what she would find. 

The remembered feeling of feathers breaking in her hands was better than waking up with rooster feathers all over my robes and I don't know how they got there. And she didn't mind that she never visited Hagrid's cabin anymore. Or that she never sat beside Colin Creevey in Charms anymore, or that she never made a comment about Nearly Headless Nick's state of non-headlessness anymore. 

It was better carrying their fear, and her betrayal than those nights of pouring out her growing fear and self-hatred. That somehow she was doing it, _ -I think I'm going mad-_ and not knowing how or why _ -I think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom!-_

Carrying the picture of a madness not done by Tom but caused by him, by the seed of fear he'd planted in her, in the part of his soul he'd put into her. Of a bedchamber torn apart in a frantic search. A violation for fear of a violation. 

She used them to fight back the longing, how deeply she wanted back what he had been to her. 

_ It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket..._

He took parts of her soul, and never gave them back. 

He made her need him. 

_ I'm so glad I've got this diary to confide in..._

But she'd never tell them. She knew what they would say, watched as they would mouth those words, meaningless words, useless words, lying words, only they believed them to be true. The monster is gone, the maiden is safe, and everything's fine, fixed and happy. 

Only, the maiden was the monster. 

She could never tell them. 

_ No one's ever understood me like you, Tom..._

She knew better now. She could smile and laugh again, freed from lies and loneliness. The past had faded into memory. 

She thought that they would have learned that memories could harm you. 

So they smiled when she did, like she hadn't ever commanded a serpent to kill, or that she didn't run whenever she saw Mrs. Norris coming. 

Because she was innocent, after all. 

And there was no harm done. 

So when sometimes she would get that look in her eyes, they would tell her 

_ There has been no lasting harm done, Ginny._

Sometimes she even believed them. 

_No harm done._


End file.
